


Liver and Onions

by Laetitia_Laetitii



Category: Runescape
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 12:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11646474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laetitia_Laetitii/pseuds/Laetitia_Laetitii
Summary: Two seers have a rambling conversation. Starring onions, chronomancy, and such matters.





	Liver and Onions

**Author's Note:**

> This contains plenty of headcanons and loose ideas about time magic and Gypsy Aris, both being mainly unknown entities. It might be helpful to also read my considerably better and less jumbled-up story Endings. http://archiveofourown.org/works/6332974/chapters/14510341

 

               

                Ariane was almost done with her shopping when she felt the first signs of a premonition coming on.

                She had come to Varrock —something she did rarely, and always reluctantly — to visit the library, and to purchase things she could not obtain elsewhere. As every time, her visit had followed a carefully fixed plan. Having spent the morning studying at the palace, she had first picked up a selection of runes at Aubury’s, then a replacement orb for her staff at Zaff’s. After a lunch of meat pie and unwanted advances at the Blue Moon, she had come to the market square to enjoy the gentle summer’s afternoon that now was turning into a gentle summer’s evening.

                She was standing near the fountain, discreetly side-eyeing the stall of a dwarven jeweller whose goods she would never be able to afford, when all at once she felt a sharp flash of pain behind her eyes.

                _Bloody Void._

There had been nothing to set the fit off. No shock, no sudden sensation. Only the flash of pain, followed by little black-and-yellow spots dancing across her field of vision. She could feel the hairs on her neck stand up despite the warmth, the cold sweat breaking out; the cold sweat that always seemed to lurk under her skin, waiting for its cue —

                _Bloody Void._

                Immediately, she began to scan the market for a place to sit down. A bench, a crate, a sack of beets — anything, anything low and stable enough, she could explain the matter later, the important thing now was to get off her feet, in case it was a big one —

                In the best case, Ariane knew, the premonition would be minor. A sudden glimmer of a view, a scene; it could be a smell from another time and place, or a single line of thought. In that event, she would stand still for a few seconds, staring into space, and the worst she could expect was a long look from a passer-by.

                In the worst case, she’d end up face down on the ground, frothing at the mouth and screaming prophesies. And then she’d avoid Varrock for a year.

                The fountain! Legs shaking already, she sat down on the stone balustrade. It would have to do. Now she’d have to catch someone, anyone at all who looked reliable enough, and tell him to run to Zaff’s shop and tell the stave-maker that Ariane was sick —

                Then, right as she felt her heart begin to thump, something else happened. Something that was not a normal part of her seeing-fits. In her head, as clear as the sounds around her, there was a voice.

                _hello_

No. Not a voice, a message. A message she had not heard, but felt happen.

                _hello_

_over here_

Over where?

                _over here_

_I know you can hear me_

Around her was nothing but the stalls lining the square, the rows of stalls and the stream of people filing past them, none of whom were paying the slightest attention to the woman at the fountain’s edge.

                _further_

Not the market-goers. Not the stalls. Something further —

                _here_

                It was then that she noticed the thing. Of course she had seen it before, but it was only that its presence actually registered in her mind: the tent. A large, round pavilion of once-crimson velvet, pitched at the edge of the square. A tin chimney protruded through a hole in its top, letting out a wispy stream of grey smoke.

                As Ariane watched, the flap of the tent swung aside, and a little old woman in a black dress and a threadbare shawl slipped out. Before leaving, she adjusted a sign attached to the curtain. Then she turned directly towards Ariane, and called out in a thin, high-pitched voice:

                “Don’t worry, dearie! She says it doesn’t mean you! Feel free to go in any time you like!”

                The woman spun around, and disappeared into the innumerable crowd of Varrock Market.

                When she was certain her legs could carry her again, Ariane pushed herself up. A fresh wave of nausea threatened to overtake her, but it subsided as she breathed deep and even, concentrating on the task at hand. There was something she was meant to do, even if she couldn’t explain why. It was not a premonition. She knew what those felt like. Nonetheless, she knew she was _supposed_ to go to the tent, regardless of what was calling to her, regardless of the still-lingering tremors —

                Two, four, six shaky strides, and she was in front of the circus-like thing, all frayed gold braid and faded flags, with a crude cardboard sign pinned to the door curtain, reading

                THE SIBYL IS OUT

                The sibyl? A fortune-teller? Like all seers, Ariane regarded clairvoyants the way a neurosurgeon might regard a homeopath, and allotted them the respect usually given to bedbugs. And while normally she would have never set a foot in such an estabishment, the voice had made things different.

                She hesitated for three long heartbeats before pushing aside the heavy velvet, letting it fall back in her wake.

                It was almost perfectly dark inside the tent, and the warm air carried a stifling smell of incense. Somewhere an unseen fire rattled, and she could hear something boil and bubble. Then a voice from the dark exclaimed triumphantly:

                “I _knew_ you could hear me!”

                A match flared, exploding her vision into a patchwork of afterimages on afterimages, purple on green on dark. Gradually, as Ariane’s eyes adjusted to the candlelight, she found herself face to face with the tent’s inhabitant.

                The woman sitting behind the silk-draped table was indeterminably old and almost emaciated, with a mass of long, white hair spreading over her shoulders. Her eyes were thickly kohled, and on her otherwise bare arms hung dozens of golden bangles. She sat with her fingers steepled behind a huge crystal ball, eyeing Ariane as if she were evaluating her guest for some unknown purpose.

                “There you are.”

                “And you…?” Ariane began, but found she did not know how to finish the question.

                “People call me Gypsy Aris. And now that you’re here, why don’t you have a seat, miss—”

                “Ariane Rowhan. You called to me.” It was a statement, not a question.

                “That I did,” said the woman people called Gypsy Aris. “I felt you nearby, and I reckoned you keen enough to pick it up.”

                “Felt me?”

                “In my bones,” the old woman said, the corners of her mouth twitching. “You’re a long way from home, Miss Rowhan.”

                “I suppose my accent inevitably gives me away as a foreigner,” she replied warily, easing herself into the vacant chair. The woman’s words stank of cold reading.

                “That too, but mainly the fact that you didn’t know who I was. But tell me, dearie, what brings you to Varrock?”

                “I’m a wizard.” _Was._ “I came here to purchase some magical artefacts.” That much was at least true.

                “You’re from the Tower, then?”

“I studied there,” Ariane said curtly. Over the years, she had a developed a story to produce for people she met, one that covered the bare essentials of her life while glossing over the parts she didn’t want to share. As she spoke, she mustered the familiar half-lies, ready to roll them out should Aris press her for more. But what the old woman said next took her by surprise.

                “But you don’t anymore. Figures. They’ve never liked seers there too much, ever since the first place got blown to bits. Made them too damned frightened of any manner of heterodoxy, if you ask me.”

                Her tone was conversational, and if she could see the shock on Ariane’s face, she wasn’t letting it show.

                “How did you know that I was—“

                 “A seer?” Aris finished the sentence for her. “Because I felt you, like I said. There’s a trick to it, but I can sense other seers, and if they’ve got enough clout in ‘em, I can contact ‘em like that, too.”

                “You’re a seer?”

                “Of course I am,” Aris said. “Says ‘sybil’ on the door, doesn’t it? Every now and then, I’ll pick up the presence of another one nearby, and I reckon it’s always nice to talk to one of your own kind.”

                “When you…contacted me, I thought I was having a premonition.”

                “Sorry to hear that, love. It’s the same — same way or channel opening up, same organ or whatnot that senses both signals, if you want to be technical about it. Milk and sugar?”

                “I beg your pardon?”

                “If we’re going to talk, Miss Ariane, and I hope we are, it’d be much nicer to do it over tea.”

                “Ah. Um. Yes. I mean yes, please. I mean, milk, please, no sugar.” Since Ariane had sat down, the conversation had taken too many quick turns to keep up with. Tea, in that situation, sounded reassuringly familiar.

                With unexpected agility for one of her age, Gypsy Aris got up and made her way to a small tin stove in the corner.

                Until now, Ariane had been so occupied with her strange hostess that she had paid little attention to her surroundings. But as she looked about now, the first thing that caught her attention was the small kitchen arranged along one side of the tent.

                There was the stove, an old, ornate thing with lion’s feet and a twisting pipe. Standing next to it was a table with a washing vat underneath and a set of shelves at its back. Inside the stove burned a merrily crackling fire, and atop it boiled a battered copper kettle.

                Her hands moving too quick to detect, Aris produced two cups and saucers from the shelves, sugar from a table drawer, and a milk can from somewhere in the shadows. Having poured their drinks, she picked from an empty jug an old, tartan-patterned tin.

                _“The greedy little bugger,”_ Ariane could hear her mutter as she inspected its contents. Then, having placed a cinnamon biscuit on each saucer, she returned to the table.

                “Much better,” Aris said. “I always put the kettle on whenever Goody Belger comes around, Noumenon knows she needs it. Good thing I left it be.”

                “The lady who was here before me?” Ariane asked. Though she wouldn’t admit it even to herself, she was grateful for the drink. Not because she was particularly thirsty or cold, but because it gave her hands something to do.

                “Her. She’s a regular. Brings me a beef liver for a reading every Caistleday.”

                “Wait, you read the future from _entrails?_ ” Ariane asked, not slightly scandalised. All forms of deceit ran against the grain of her soul, but the idea of a seer engaging in such charlatanry was downright offensive.

                “No, not entrails,” Aris said. “Liver is good for a read, and so are kidneys. Hearts too, as long as they’re fresh. I keep wanting to tell people that they’d work better if all the tubes and membranes were cut off, but that might be pushing it.”

                “But that’s _fraud!”_

                “Is it?” Aris asked, placing a lump of sugar between her front teeth. She took a gulp of tea through it and continued, replacing her sugar on the saucer. “The way I see it, sometimes a bit of fraud isn’t all bad, if what you’re being fraudulent about is the fact that you’re telling the truth.”

                “And that’s what you do?” Ariane asked, poised to leap into a bout of righteous indignation.

                “Correct,” said Aris, her eyes twinkling. “You see, people come to me with all manners of problems and questions because they think I can see the future. Most of the time I can’t, of course, as both you and I know perfectly well. But what I do is listen to their stories, and ask questions, and often that will give them some clarity of thought over the matter. And if it don’t, I’ll give them whatever advice I think is sensible and useful, and my advice is sensible and useful indeed, and not the least because I know the business of just about everyone as lives in this city.”

                 “But then why all this — this frippery? ‘The sibyl’, the crystal ball, the liver…” Ariane’s voice trailed off.

                “Two reasons, my child” said Aris between mouthfuls of cinnamon biscuit. “Firstly, dressing. Got to package things a bit. If I told people they ought to do something just because it makes sense, no-one would ever believe me. On the other hand, if I tell ‘em  they ought to do it because I saw it in a pile of tea leaves or this old crystal ball, they’ll take it as the Gods’ own truth. Makes you despair, doesn’t it?”  

                “It does,” said Ariane. “And the other one?”

                “Self-preservation,” Aris replied, growing serious again. “Because I do sometimes have actual premonitions, which is something I can’t hide. And there’s always been people — you know who they are, because you’ve met them — who think that seeing is dark magic. Or witchcraft. Or just generally wrong and unnatural, at any rate. But a fortune-teller? A fortune-teller isn’t a thing to take seriously. Which means that if I do a bit of prophesying and someone takes issue with it, I can make it out to be another part of my act.”

                “So,” Ariane said, “In other words, you pretend to see the future when you’re just telling people what you think is right, and you pretend to be pretending when you’re _actually_ having premonitions.”

                “You learn surprisingly fast for someone with an education.”

                They stared at each other across the table like a pair of gamblers, both waiting for the other one’s move. The spell held for a while, until it was suddenly broken by a crash of china from the washing vat. Aris’ head snapped up, but then she seemed to see something Ariane could not make out, and relaxed again.

                “Didn’t sound like anything broke,” she said dismissively. “Though I wish _some_ of us were a bit more careful.” The last part was spoken a touch more loudly, as if addressed at an invisible third party. Then she turned back to Ariane.

                “It’s a handy deal, my child,” she said, licking her finger to catch crumbs from the tablecloth. “The sibylling business. I help people who always don't know how to help themselves. Moreover, it keeps me in food and firewood, keeps me safe from unpleasant people with torches and pitchforks, and most importantly, it leaves me free to take care of my _actual_ job.”

                “Which is?”

                “Which is a long story. And if you’re going to hear it, it’ll take a lot of time, and neither me nor that bit of liver is getting any younger. Not to mention the clock’s ticking towards seven. Are you staying for dinner?”

                It was an unexpected invitation, but not an unwelcome one. She had a room at the Blue Moon, which while less seedy than the Dancing Donkey or the Jolly Boar, could nonetheless get quite lively towards the evening. Furthermore, despite the constant sense of being in way over her head when she spoke to her, there were more questions she wanted to ask Gypsy Aris, and she understood instinctively that the old woman would speak at her own pace.

                “Yes, please,” she said. “I mean, thank you. Is there anything I can do?”

                “There is,” Aris said, rising up again. “Slice the onions for me, will you? They make my eyes run something awful. Just put the cups in the vat. There’s water in it, isn’t there? Good. I’ll take care of the lot in the morning.”

                With the same speed she had made the tea, Aris had presently produced from various hiding places a jar of breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, and several bunches of dried herbs, and was now speedily cutting the liver into thin slices. While she busied herself coating them, Ariane got started with the onions.

                She found herself almost embarrassingly rusty with the knife. She had grown up helping Gran in the kitchen, but then there had been the years at the Tower, where a servant placed three square meals a day in front of you, and she had fallen out of practice. These days she lived mostly at inns, never sticking in one place too long and surviving on a diet of pub pies and stews. Now, suddenly she was again in a tiny kitchen, cooking dinner with an old woman. And even if the slices turned out uneven and the juices made her eyes tear up — even if she wasn’t entirely certain how exactly she had ended up there — it was a good feeling.

                When the frying onions had almost drowned out the smell of incense, Aris ladled two heaping portions on a pair of floral plates. Then she picked a saucer from the shelves, and arranged on it carefully a single slice of liver and three pieces of onion. After placing the plates on the table, she bent down to put the saucer by the washing vat.

                “You eat all the onion, do you hear me,” she said. “No buts.”

                They sat down, but Ariane could not take her eyes off the little saucer on the ground. As she watched, somewhere from the darkness, something — a paw? A tiny clawed hand? — materialised and snatched the saucer. There was a clink of porcelain, and a small but somehow obscene slurping sound. She could not contain herself anymore.

                “What—”

                “Never mind. That’s just Tiny. He’s the living image of a deathless necromancer. A friend of mine brought him back from an alternative universe.”

                “Oh.”

                “She — the friend I mean, not the necromancer — couldn’t look after him on the account of her schedule, so the little pest stays with me. He’s a bloody menace if you ask me, though not as bad as the original. But at any rate,” Aris finished, “the liver’s nice.”

                “It is.” Holding a conversation over a meal didn’t come easily to Ariane. Seventeen years of reading while she ate had seen to that. Aris, however, didn’t seem to mind.

                 “The trick’s to fry it quick enough and flip it only once. Can’t go wrong like that. Now, where was I before? Before we started cooking?”

                “You mentioned your other job,” Ariane said. “Your actual job.”

                “That I did. It’s one not many people know I do, but if I stopped doing it, they’d know soon enough.” Aris chewed slowly, seemingly deep in thought. When she spoke again the old woman sounded distant, as if she was talking to herself. “In the dark places of this universe,” she began, “there are things that view us the way we view cockroaches. They dwell in the remote corners of Gielinor and the unseen shadows, in the nethermost planes and the wild, wide Abyss. And they’re waiting, always waiting, for a chance to strike and wipe us all out. Sometimes because they want what we have, sometimes just because they like the idea.”  Here Ariane could hear her voice tighten, as if an old and pent-up rage was creeping out, ready to be unleashed. “And they’re arrogant too. They don’t realize the bugs might be looking back at ‘em. But — nevertheless — that’s what I do. I wait here, and I keep guard over the city. I watch the north and the things that live there. I watch the unstable places where the veil has worn thin. I watch the portals, and the shadows, and the river that is Time. That’s my actual job. I guard Varrock.”

                “And when you see something?”

                “I raise alarm,” Aris replied. “I go and find a hero. I’m no fighter myself, but I can tell the types who can get a job done. Not to mention, should the situation require it, I can do a few things to aid a champion. You know about chronomancy?”

                “Pardon?”

                “Chronomancy, my child, time magic. Mhm.” Aris swallowed a particularly tough piece of liver. “They still don’t teach that at the Tower, do they? Bit too irregular for them, lot of purists that they are. The moon-witches of Lunar Isle know about it. Gnomes used to, but have forgotten. The renegades on the dark side of Zanaris use it for their own purposes, but you’d be a fool — a suicidal fool — to set a foot in the White Woods. The Guardians of Guthix who all have a bit of it as a part of their blessings, and that poor, poor child who sacrificed herself, all in — I’m reeling again, I see. Now _eat._ I can hardly teach you if you keel over from hunger. Good girl.”

                When Ariane— whose fork had been frozen halfway to her mouth for the past five minutes — had dutifully continued eating, Gypsy Aris went on.

                “You’re a seer,” she said, “and a seer is nothing but someone as can see forward along the flow of time. But what most people don’t get is that if you’re clever enough, you can learn to do other things to it than just seeing. You can learn to dam it in a place, or freeze it at another. You can learn to travel back and forth along it, and see the places where it has split, creating more worlds…”

                Her voice faded off. Ariane was about to let loose a series of questions about what Aris meant, what she was talking about; where could she _learn —_

                 But at that moment there was another ceramic crash from the washing vat, followed by a fading pitter-patter that to Ariane sounded like tiny feet running away.

                _“ARGH!”_

“You know, Aris said conversationally, “for someone a foot tall, he’s an awful nuisance. But anyway, since you asked, that’s my actual job. I took it upon me a long time ago, after I made the long, long journey here from the distant south where I was born and raised…”

                “The south?” asked Ariane, caught up by what Aris was saying. She desperately wanted to ask about all the things the old woman had mentioned before, about chronomancy and other universes and the freezing of time, but she could not let the throwaway line pass. She looked at her ancient face, trying and failing to place it in Al-Kharid, in the Desert, in the isles of the Eastern Sea where a race of powerful magicians was said to dwell… “Aris, where are you from?”

                “From a remote place, my child, where the people never grow old.”

                “And where is that?”

                “Further than the wind travels.

                “Which is?”

                “At the faraway edge of the world.”

                _“Where, Aris?”_

                “Soaper’s Alley, down by the south gate,” Aris replied, grinning. “I grew up in one of the tenements as were owned by Lord DeMarne, may the fish in the Noumenon piss in his mouth.” Finished, she placed her knife and fork down neatly on her plate. “You know,” she said, leaning back in her chair, arms folded across her chest, “you’re the first one in a long time as caught on to that one. I usually manage to pass myself off bein’ exotic and foreign.”

                This time Ariane was ready for it. She was beginning to understand how the old seer’s mind worked.

                “Protective colouring,” she said.

                “Precisely,” Aris said, flashing a smile. “Lead ‘em to believe you’re strange, that way they don’t notice that you are.”

                Ariane tried to find something to say, but the words had scraped at something old and painful inside her. So, she smiled back and dropped her eyes to her cutlery.

                Silence fell again, and this time there were no ceramic interruptions to it. The candles were nearing their end, their trembling, long-wicked flames giving little light.

                “It’s getting late, dearie,” Aris said, straightening her back again. “It’s always like this whenever I meet other seers and get to talk shop. Once I get going I don’t know when to stop ‘til the church clock strikes midnight. Which otherwise wouldn’t be a problem for someone your age, but ‘round here it doesn’t do to muck about around after dark, wizard or no wizard. However,” she said as Ariane made a move to get up “before you go, I was thinking there’s something I could do.”

                “And what would that be?” Ariane asked, sinking back on the chair.

                “Tell you fortune.”

                “Tell my fortune,” she repeated, eyebrows raised. “From your crystal ball, I presume, since we’re all out of liver?”

                “There’s the ball if that’s your fancy, but I’ve also got a deck of cards — a regular one, none of that tarot nonsense — and some of those Wushanko yarrow stalks, in case you like things a bit fancy.”

                “Do I get to pick?”

                “Customer’s choice,” Aris replied, “even if this one’s on the house.”

                “Alright then,” Ariane said. “I want you to read my palm.”

                “Palmistry it is, then?” Aris said, bowing deep. “A good choice, you have no idea how much you can tell of people just by looking at their hands. Just put your plate aside, no, never mind, I’ll take care of them later. Now, your right hand is your writing hand.”

                “Correct.” Ariane said, extending it on the table. “As you can no doubt see from the ink stains.”

                “That I can,” Aris replied, taking hold of it with both her own. The old woman’s grip was surprisingly strong. “Those, and the callus on your third finger. You hold a pen like that too? And I see you’ve done real work at some point in your life.”

                “I was raised on a farm.”

                “Whereabouts?”

                “Seers' Village. A long time ago.”

                “The Village, you say?” Aris asked, still studying her hand. “Must’ve been something of a cold shower getting out.”

                “It was.”

                “I can believe that. But look,” she pointed enthusiastically, “these are the lines that shall decide your fate. Here is your heart line, and here’s your head line, these two running side by side. And here running across them is the fate line, and if you look at them like this, you can see — you can see— hmm.” She paused. “A bridge,” Aris said quietly, suddenly subdued. Her voice fell to a low mutter, as if she was reading the words from an invisible book.“There’s a bridge and you’re on it. I see a friend. A good friend, but not necessarily a trustworthy one, always. Hmph. You’re reunited after long separation, but it’s not for a pleasant reason.” The fingers squeezed Ariane’s hands harder, the painted nails digging into her flesh. “I see the gateways,” Aris whispered hoarsely. “The portals through another place. I see the last chamber and a great betrayal. But as it falls…as the thing falls…as it falls… _they rise.”_

                Abruptly, she let go of Ariane’s hand and leaned back, smiling.

                “Had you for a moment there, didn’t I?” Aris asked. “You make up something nonsensical enough and people will fight to see meaning in it.”

                Ariane found she could not reply. There was something in the old woman’s manner that did not add up, and suddenly she realized that as shows went, it had not been an impressive one. And based on the past hours, Gypsy Aris did not put up unimpressive shows, which left only one other option.

                However, she also instinctively knew that the time for pointing that out was not now. So — though it went against every inch of her being — she said aloud something she did not mean:

                “That they will.”

                It was time for her to leave. Trying not to move so quickly as to seem rude, Ariane rose from her chair.

                “Well. Thank you for the dinner, Aris. And the tea.”

                “You’re welcome, dearie,” Gypsy Aris said. “It’s been nice talking to you, even if I’m ‘fraid that I did most of the talking.” Seemingly through a wordless agreement, they had decided to not to mention the reading further. “And I wouldn’t be averse to learning more about you.” She relaxed in her chair again, appraising Ariane who was taking her time arranging her shawl. “So, I don’t know for how long you’ll be in Varrock, but if you’ve got the time, you know where to find me.”

                “I do,” Ariane said, giving the old woman a quick smile. “And thank you, once again.”

                “You’re welcome, once again. Take care, child. And keep your eyes open.”

                “I will. Thank you, and good-night, Aris.”

                “G’night, my child.”

                Before the curtain fell back in place, the last thing Ariane saw was the smoky outline of a white-haired woman in candlelight. As she walked through the empty, moonlit market square, she kept glancing back at the red tent, half-expecting it to disappear between looks. But it was still there as she turned to King Botolph Street, and stayed there until it was swallowed by the night.


End file.
